I would like to buy the Silver Efex Pro 2 software for black and white conversion. Could anyone tell me if the other plug ins are good within the bundle of plug ins that come with it, ie the sharpener etc?

I use CEP2 the most. I use Viveza once in a while, but if I had a faster computer I could see myself using it more often. Sojmetimes i use the Noise reduction one. HDR Efx2 is a very good HDR plug-in with excellent controls. I think it's up there with some of the better HDR software for natural looking HDR. Can't go wrong with the entire bundle for the price they have it at these days.

I'm another fan who uses all of the NIK plugins. I use sharpener Pro and HDR Efex pro the least. SEP2 is the best B&W conversion tool I've seen. Almost all my photos that go for more PP go through Viveza. I use Color Efex Pro for an alt look.

I just upgraded and got Analog Efex Pro. I don't like the default settings, but I see some potential. The dirt filter is a waste to me.

SFX is among the best B&W conversion software around. I also use Viveza extensively. Its ability to allow me to modify areas of a photo is valuable. I find the sharpener to be worthless (others don't) and the dfine noise reduction to be less than what some other programs are capable of e.g. PhotoNinja (Mac), Topaz DeNoise. Many like the ColorEfx though I don't use it much.

I would like to buy the Silver Efex Pro 2 software for black and white conversion. Could anyone tell me if the other plug ins are good within the bundle of plug ins that come with it, ie the sharpener etc?

Thanks.

yes, very good, the sharpner performs almost the same way as the custom one I had built up.... only with much easier adjustability AND the ability to easily target it to only apply to certain ranges of color!

And Viveza 2 can work wonders for getting something natural looking out of deep bit combined or single shot higher DR photos and so on.

I haven't used colorfx yet.

I like SilverFX a lot. When I looked around SilverFX and Viveza worked by far the best of the various other such options.

Silver Efex Pro 2 works with CS4.
The bundle is worth it and a steal. I bought the bundle with a good academic discount a year and half ago. Paid over $200.
I use SEP constantly, Color Efex occ, Viveza not enough (got to learn it). I am not able to make the Sharpener Pro work as I would like (probably me). Dfine works very well when LR doesnt do enough. I dont shoot HDR but have had some fun with single image conversion to higher dynamic range processing "look".
Scott

If you go with Nik (which I like), know that Google does an automatic update without warning (which I hate). This can be problematic for some users, but there are solutions to prevent the auto updates (just Google it!).

kroyston wrote:
Is there an upgrade price? I wouldn't mind trying the Analog Efex, but I'm not going to spend another $149 for it.

Since Google dropped the price to $149 for the buddle this is the best deal in photo editting. I use Silver Efex constantly.
What version to you have? When Google bought them, I had and old version and had to pay $149 for the upgrade. I can't remember now what I was after that led me to upgrade then. I think I wanted to add a plugin, but I can't remember which. It might have been Color Efex Pro, although I had bought the bundle. The recent inclusion of Analog Efex was free.

In your case, if you're happy with the tools you have, I wouldn't upgrade just for Analog Efex.

I already have the complete collection
went to their site and downloaded from the " try me" button
installed over old version
got analog effect pro
btw - my software did not auto up date - previous installed version was from march
no auto updated - which is fine by me